Green Spaces That Aren’t Really Green
Written in collaboration with Adam Harrington
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. saw the most significant net increase in the number of golfers from 2019 to 2020, recorded in 17 years. According to the NGF, 500,000 new golfers took to the courses around the country. And with so many new golfers, comes new courses. After unprecedented growth in the level of courses in the early 2000s and a resurgence of building efforts following the pandemic-spurred demand, an important question remains: What is the environmental impact of recreational golf courses?
While golf courses appear to be nestled naturally within raw landscapes, there has long been an outcry surrounding the creation of these fields. Golf associations may have you think that the play courses are biodiverse green spaces, but they are far more detrimental to natural ecosystems than wildlife refuges with the primary goal of protection and conservation. Golf courses are monocultures, often using non-native turfgrasses. Their construction and maintenance require pesticides, heavy metals, and frequent water misuse. Additionally, there is a clear trade-off between using land for a golf course versus other uses such as conservation land, public parks, or housing.
Based on a 2007 report, the total acreage of an average 18-hole golf course is made up of 67 percent maintained turfgrass. Whereas golf-affiliated organizations would like the public to believe the rest of the course is made up of forest habitat, only 16 percent of the remaining acreage includes non-turfgrass vegetation. (The rest is water bodies, buildings, bunkers, and parking lots.) Golf courses are, in essence, big lawns. There are huge differences between monocultures like this and a healthy, diverse ecosystem.
Maintaining this monoculture is even more pernicious than you might realize. Monocultures drain nutrients from the soil. When there are a variety of naturally occurring plants in an area, some deposit nutrients into the soil or use differing levels of nutrients, eventually creating balanced nutrient consumption. But in monocultural fields, the soil never has a chance to recover from consistent overconsumption. With the natural balance of nutrients ruined, the only way to keep courses looking green and “healthy,” is with fertilizer use. However, the demands of golfers for perfectly trimmed, bright green courses don’t stop there. To keep the grass in playing condition, golf courses must mow regularly, keeping grass unnaturally short. This changes its common behavior and results in a number of negative effects.
When grass is cut short frequently it understandably becomes stressed, weakening it and making it more susceptible to pests, disease, and weeds. This further encourages the already huge amounts of pesticide, fungicide, and herbicide use on the course. Golf courses are notorious sources of pollution and have been found to use several times more pesticides per acre than agricultural land or household lawns. These poisons damage ecosystems that are proximal to the course.
Constantly cutting grass also stimulates growth to compensate, meaning that it takes more water to thrive than an uncut lawn. Alternatively, when grass is allowed to mature, the blades become thicker and more drought resistant. When grasses are allowed to develop they also strengthen their root systems, enabling them to access water deeper within the soil. As a result, the stunted turf found on golf courses needs far more water to survive than more mature grasses with thicker blades and stronger roots.
It’s easy to underestimate how much water golf courses use. To put it in perspective, an average golf course uses 312,000 gallons per day, the water use equivalent of a family of four over a period of two years. With around 16,000 golf courses in the US, that’s an enormous waste of water. Even worse, when that water does return to natural systems, it often carries pesticides, fertilizers, and other pollutants from the courses with it, creating widespread contamination.
While all this sounds damning (and it is) there is some hope for golf. In recent years there has been an increasing interest in environmentally friendly golf. For example, the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf describes itself as “an award-winning education and certification program that helps golf courses protect our environment and preserve the natural heritage of the game of golf.” Golf courses have even been found to provide valuable habitat for some species. Additionally, some courses are trying new strategies to reduce their environmental impact, including seeding less water-intensive grass varieties, watering with wastewater rather than potable water, and mowing less of their courses.
Many golf supporters argue that while courses might not be a perfect habitat, golf is still better than many other kinds of development. One 2009 study concludes that golf courses “had higher ecological value in 64% of comparative cases,” like agricultural and urban land use. The study stated that many golf courses contribute to enhancing biodiversity through the preservation of birds, insects, and plants that are of conservation concern using “ecologically simplified landscapes.”
But even the few golf courses that are trying to reduce harmful impacts still have to contend with the consequences that golf imposes on ecosystems and communities. Reducing water use, reducing mowing, and other tactics still do not ultimately solve the problems golf has, but they still are good first steps. They are also good business sense. Being more efficient with water, using smaller amounts of toxic chemicals and other “green” improvements can save money for golf courses in the long term. Hopefully, more golf courses can see the benefits of reducing their environmental impact.
Unfortunately, most golf courses are not even taking these first steps toward mitigating their disastrous environmental impact. Golf courses would rather invest the money into appearing “green” rather than actually being it. Audubon International, the organization behind the aforementioned “Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf”, is a golf-industry-funded group, ripping off the respected, internationally recognized reputation of the bird-loving National Audubon Society. Most of its funding comes from selling certifications to golf courses, even ones publicly opposed by the National Audubon Society (for killing birds).
As for land use, golf is at least as often a source of ecological destruction, as one of preservation. Earlier this year, Greenbury Point Conservation Area, a 150-acre protected wildlife and natural resources sanctuary bordering the mouth of the Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay, was threatened by a proposal led by Chet Gladchuk, the Naval Academy’s athletic director, to build an 18-hole golf course there. This would come at a steep environmental cost to the critical area, crucial to the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. As is sadly often the case, creating this golf course would be detrimental to surrounding natural areas.
Golf courses inherently require stripping natural areas of their natural vegetation. They lack a balanced variety of plant life resulting in an environment that is not suitable for most animals, despite some well-adapted species. Since there is little to no coexistence of other organisms in their monoculture lawns, golf courses harm all the native creatures that would rely on this coexistence. To prevent unwanted species from disrupting the monoculture, golf courses rely on pesticides or more direct forms to kill animals that could inhabit their courses. As one biologist, Collette Adkins, at the Center for Biological Diversity told Reveal, “it’s great that the golf courses set up an environment that attracts wildlife, but that doesn’t mean they’re environmentally friendly.”
Ultimately, most of the benefits of golf courses only go to a relatively small number of people. Even though there are many public courses, the nature of the game limits the number of people able to enjoy its benefits at any time. In fact, golf ranks as the least space-efficient sport per player! Golf is a beloved pastime for many, but that doesn’t negate the environmental problems it generates. While the advantages of golf are accrued by a few, the costs of pollution, excessive land use, and water waste are paid for by all of us.
This article was written in collaboration with Adam Harrington. Follow Leinbach and Harrington on Twitter @N_Leinbach and @ad_harr_am.
